We really were, for the most part, terribly naive weren’t we? My Form Master, when I was a First Former, was found in delecto flagrente with a boarder. The next day we suddenly acquired a temporary Form Master and quite cheerfully accepted the official story that he’d been “taken ill” and probably wouldn’t be coming back. That actually proved to be a turning point for me because the man who took over as Form and English Master became one of the most important people in my life, for all the right reasons. He was the one who persuaded me to shoot for the top and do S Level English Lit as well as A level, best thing I ever did.

I doubt I’d have fared too well at Collyers after all then. On a tally system like that I’d probably have had very few Saturdays to myself for my entire time at school.

Boys jumping over ditches is such a cruel pet hate, it almost seems like a way to keep the merit marks clocking up.

Malcolm

My Mum’s fear over father trying to snatch me were very real and started the moment she finally filed for divorce when I was 9. He didn’t give a damn’ about the girls but felt he had a right to his only son. Perhaps if I’d known about that I might not have behaved quite so foolishly but Mum didn’t admit it until I was 16.

I know a lot of boys who went to city schools with good transport had school on Saturdays but it really wouldn’t have worked in Sussex. I had an hours coach travel at either end of the day as it was.

I’m probably going to do a post about MGS, it was an odd school with a very unusual Headmaster who had some radical ideas. One thing he did was remove the right of all teachers to administer the cane, he was the only one who did it and it happened in his office not in front of the class.

We didn’t have a deal of caning either – but openly questioning a Master like that would have brought a sharp intake of breath from the rest of the form and an instruction to go and get a stick and ‘the book’ without any doubt.

It’s interesting that going to a school which was nearly in the centre of a city meant that public transport ran pretty frequently and for all the hours of the day. That’s possibly why many boys attended school for extended hours and, for some years, on six days a week.

You have to remember that we had a progressive Headmaster who was determined to make the cane obsolete except for the most extreme offences. Talking back to a Master no longer counted as a caning offence.

Our detentions were always immediate and equivalent to 1 period per offence. the rural nature of the catchment area made Saturday detention impractical on several levels and there was no such thing as Saturday school for us beyond playing on School teams and things like that.

But 45 minute detention? Ours were two hours on a Saturday afternoon because we had school on Saturday mornings. Still, I’m pretty sure that if a boy in our Third Year had said what you did he’d have got the cane for it.

(oh and sure, you still could get change from a penny!)